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WHAT CONSTITUTES A PLOT
WHAT CONSTITUTES A PLOT A fictional plot is such an arrangement of the events in a story as will bring out effectively the basic situation, the main crisis, the minor crises, ifany, and the denouement.1 The several terms of this definition will require some discussion, though not in the precise order of their statement above. A plot deals with events A plot is an arrangement The EFFECT of a plot is its reason for being A plot must feature a crisis in the life of the chief character in the story A plot may contain minor crises A plot must have a dinottement r. What Constitutes a plot. A fictional or adramatic plot is the working plan by which the story is made to lead up to the crisis (orcomplication, or cross- roads of choice), and then swiftly down to the outcome (or unfolding of the mystery, or untying of the knot, or result of the choice). There can be no real plot without a complication whose explanation is worked out as the story draws to its close. A mere chain of happenings which do not involve some change or threatened change in the character, the welfare, the destinies of the leading "people," would not form a plot. Jack goes to college, studies hard, makes the football team, enjoys the companionship of his classmates, indulges in a few pranks, and returns home—there is no plot here, though there is plenty of plot material. But send Jack to college, and have him there find an old enemy, and at once a struggle begins. This gives us a complication, a "mix- up," a crisis ; and the working out of that struggle constitutes the plot. So all dramatic and all fictional plots give the idea of a struggle, more or less definitely set forth. The struggle need not be bodily ; it may take place mentally between two people—even between the forces of good and evil in the soul of an individual. Theimportanceof the struggle, the clearness with which it is shown to the spectator, and the sympathetic or even the horrified fascinationwhich it arouses in him, have all to do with its effectiveness as a plot—note the three italicized words. Dividing the subject roughly, in this brief discussion, three important elements of plot deserve consideration: (a) The preliminariesmust be natural, interesting, fresh, and vivid. That is, they must not seem manufactured. It is all well enough to say that Jack has made an enemy at College, but how did the enmity arise? The young men will not become opponents merely to suit the photoplaywright. You must think out some natural, interesting, fresh, and vivid cause for the antagonism. Such a logical basis for action is called motivation.And so with all the preliminaries on which your plot is based—they must motivate what follows. Remember that forces or persons outside the two characters may lead them to quarrel. Swiftly but carefully lay your foundations (mostly out of sight, in the manner of a good builder) so that your building may be solid and steady—so that your story may not fall because the groundwork of the plot does not appeal to the spectator as being natural, convincing, interesting, fresh, and vivid; these words bear reiteration. (b) The complication, or struggle, including all its immediately surrounding events, must be (usually) surprising, of deep concern to the chief character, and arouse the anxiety of the spectator as to how the hero will overcome the obstacles. Jack discovers that the girl he has just learned to love is the well-loved sister of his college enemy. How will this complication work out? An interesting series of movements and counter-movements immediately becomes possible, and any number of amusing or pathetic circumstances may arise to bring about the denouement—which simply means the untying of the knot. The struggle in a plot may be either comical or tragic. Mr. Botts ludicrously fights against a black- hand enemy—who proves to be his mischievous small son. Plump and fussy Mrs. Jellifer lays deep but always transparent plans to outwit her daughter's suitor and is finally entrapped into so laughable a situation that she yields gracefully in the end. And so on indefinitely. Hamlet wars against his hesitating nature. Macbeth struggles with his con science that reincarnates the murdered Banquo. Sentimental Tommy fights his own play-actor character. Tito Melema goes down beneath the weight of his accumulated insincerities. Sometimes light shines in the end, sometimes the hero wins only to die. To be sure, these struggles suggest merely a single idea, whereas plots often become very elaborate and contain even sub-plots, counter-plots, and added complications of all sorts. But the basis is the same, and always in some form struggle pervades the drama; always this struggle ranges the subordinate characters for or against protagonist and antagonist, and the outcome is vitally part and substance of all that goes before—the end was sown when the seeds of the beginning were planted. This touches upon the third element: © The Denouement, or disclosure of the plot just before its close, is one of its most vital parts. "Novelty and interest in the situations throughout the story, with anincreasing interest in the denouement, are the essential demands of a plot." 1 It goes without saying that you must interest your audience, but you must also satisfy them—gratify the curiosity you have earlier aroused. It is all very well to write an "absorbing" story, in which the excitement and expectation are sustained up to the very last scene, but be sure that the theme is essentially such that in the last scenes, if not before, your action will unravel the knot that has become so tantalizingly tangled as the play proceeded. No matter how promising a theme may be in other respects, it is foredoomed to failure if from it comes a plot of which the spectator will say as he goes out, "It was a pretty picture—but I couldn't understand the ending." Another thing: If it is important that, in every case, the spectators must be "shown" what happens in the working out of a plot, it is equally important that they be shown why it happens. This also has to do with sound and comprehensible motivation. "It is not so much a case of 'show me,' with the average American, as a common recognition that there must be a reason for the existence of everything created. He is inclined to give every play a fair show, will sit patiently through a lot of straining for effect, if there is a raison d' etre in the summing up, but his mode of thought, and it belongs to the constitution of the race, is that of getting at some truth by venturesome experiment or logical demonstration." 1 Bear that truth in mind, no matter what you write of, and never start anything that you can't finish— which is simply one way of saying, do not start to write a story at all until you have every scene, situation, and incident, so thoroughly planned, motivated and developed in your mind that when you come to write it out in action in the scenario you cannot help making the audience understand the plot. Never attempt to introduce even a single situation without a logical cause; be sure that "there's a reason." "Break away from the old lines," advises Mr. Nehls, of the American Company. "Try to write scenarios that will hold the interest with a not too obvious ending, with sudden, unexpected changes in the trend of the story." If the story contains a mystery, do not allow the end to be guessed too soon. Interest thrives on suspense and on expectation. The surprising thing, yet the natural ending, swiftly brought about, marks the climax of a good plot. Many a promising photoplay script has failed because it did not make good its prophecy. The plot opened well, but "petered out"—the complication was a good one, but the unfolding of the mystery, the result of the struggle, the aftermath of the choice, were disappointing. the Distinction between plot and structure An objective makes a plot WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD short story PLOT PLOT as selection and rearrangement note photoplay = screenplay pLOT is to photoplay at once the skeleton upon which the flesh of incident is hung and the spirit which animates that flesh, for plot comprises both the outline of incident and the idea which that in cident seeks to tell. One gives form and the other soul. You may see a beautiful woman or a handsome man, well proportioned, of good complexion, noble in carriage and possessed of every desirable physical attribute and yet repellant because there is no soul; no intelligence, to animate the flesh. On the other hand, you may see women plain of face or men rugged and almost uncouth sway the world because of the force of their personality, the strength of soul within them. It is not required that the wax figure shall be possessed of intelgence because it merely simulates life, but photoplay reproduces life and should be animated by life. This point cannot be too strictly insisted upon, for on plot rests the entire structure of photoplay. Without plot there can be no photoplay, yet the novice is apt to ignore this most important fact and regard as plot any series of incidents more or less closely related. Such plays are not really plays at all, because they lack the essentials of plot. They are incidents, and incidents, however sprightly, cannot retain interest since there is no central object upon which interest can be concentrated. The wise student will first thoroughly master plot before going further in photoplay studies and then learn to distinguish between plot and incident before seeking to unite the two. Were these points fully and intelligently understood and appreciated by all writers, not ten plays would be offered where a hundred are now presented. In other words, not more than ten manuscripts in each hundred sent out really possess the fundamental necessity of plot, and of these ten plots not all are good. Almost invariably the beginner mistakes incident for plot. If things happen, they form a story if they all relate to the same group of characters. This is an error. Incident is no more than the flesh of happening that clothes the bones of plot. Incident is attractive and interesting only where there is an underlying reason for the recital of that incident. Behind incident there must be the support of plot just as the skeleton must sustain the flesh. We look upon a lovely woman and say she is very beautiful. We exclaim at the soft curve of the cheek and throat, the noble arch of the brow, the graceful contour of the head. We do not realize that all this is flesh built upon bone and that without the bone, the skeleton, the lovely face would be a pendulous, tumorlike mass, disgusting and repellant. On the other hand the unclothed skull is unlovely. It must be clothed with flesh, for the bare is suggestive of death, and Nem seek the suggestion of life. But bone and flesh without soul are death and not life. We must have the trinity of bone, flesh and spirit, just as in plotted plays we must have the idea, the form and the in- cident. There is required the skeleton of plot form, clothed in inci- dent and animated by idea. The idea of a triad still further sug- gests itself. A plot should consist of struggle, suspense and climax; the centuries-old definition of Aristotle declares that a play must have a beginning, a middle and an end. We have, too, the Greek triad of time, place and action. A plot is the recital of the means by which a definite and pre- determined object is gained or lost. George wishes to marry Agnes. If he does so, he attains his object. If he does not, he fails. If George merely asks Agnes if she will marry him; if she says "yes," and they go to the minister or she says "no" and George hangs him- self, there is no plot. It is history, but not plot. It is evident, then, that there is another requisite of plot. This factor is termed struggle. Struggle is the clash of determination against obstruction. If George wishes to marry Agnes and there is no opposition, no strug- gle, there is no clash, and therefore no interest. But if John also de- sires Agnes for his bride and seeks to rid himself of his rival, or if for some reason Agnes' father objects to George, then there has been raised an obstacle to be overcome, and mere incident, through strug- gle,becomes plot. The overcoming of this obstacle, through struggle, or being overcome by it constitutes a question of interest, and through interest in the plot the incidents in which the plot is told become of interest. But you may have a story replete with struggle and still not in- teresting. It may present a lively series of struggles against obstacle and yet be so one-sided that there is little doubt as to the outcome and therefore of small interest as to that outcome. The answer is sim- ple. One factor is yet lacking. We have obstacle and struggle against obstacle, but we have no suspense. The outcome is assured. If we know from the outset that George will win Agnes from John or overcome parental objection, then we cannot become unduly interested in the struggle. But if we are interested in George and want to see him win Agnes, then if we are made to fear that John will win or that the father cannot be placated, suspense makes this struggle in- teresting because the outcome is in doubt and we are kept in suspense. If the plot can be so planned as to make it appear now that George will win and then that John will be the victor, again swinging the odds to George and returning them to John, we will be kept in a state of suspense that will engage our interest unless the struggle is so long continued that even suspense fails to hold interest and we be- come indifferent as to the outcome because we have tired both of George and John. Clearly the play must be brought to a definite and conclusive end. The proposition proves itself. The play must have a beginning, which is the statement of the object of the play and the obstacle to be encountered; a middle, or struggle against this object made interesting through suspense; and an end or termination of the struggle, wherein either victory is gained or defeat sustained. Taking the sligh) plot outlined above, study it in diagram. BEGINNING. George wishes to marry Agnes. (Object.) John is his rival. (Obstacle.) MIDDLE. The father favors John. (Struggle and suspense.) Struggle because the father's favor improves John's chances, and suspense because we fear that the odds against George's success have become too great. George and Agnes quarrel. (Struggle.) George now has to overcome this additional handicap and so fight the harder. Agnes turns to John. (Suspense.) Will Agnes marry John or forgive George and restore • him to favor? George loses his fortune. (Suspense.) How will this affect his chances of winning forgiveness from Agnes? John inherits money. (Struggle.) This adds to the difficulties that John must overcome. Pitying George, Agnes forgives him. (Struggle.) Since an obstacle has been overcome. The father's opposition to George grows stronger. (Struggle.) This obstacle has become more pronounced. George and Agnes elope. (Struggle.) They will overcome the obstacle of opposition by outwitting the father. The father and John give pursuit. Suspense predominates here, as the spectator fears that the elopers will be overtaken and the union prevented. END George and Agnes are married. (Climax.) The objectis attained. The father forgives them. Falling action and end of the play. It should be noticed that the quarrel between George and Agnes is not immediately patched up. John first comes into his fortune to increase the obstacle and the suspense. Then the forgiveness becomes of greater interest through the introduction of the new factor. John's inheritance makes it appear that he will become the favored suitor. Now we are more than ever pleased that Agnes forgives George. Agnes, too, wins greater favor now because she forgives George not only though his own fortune is gone, but in spite of the added affluence of John. She is given twice the credit that would be hers did she merely forgive George when he lost his money and before she knew of John's inheritance. It might be even better to have John come into his fortune before George loses his. This will put the two men on a more even footing. Now the loss of George's money becomes even more apparently a calamity. The story as it is framed gives the benefit of the factors to Agnes. This latter form will gain greater sympathy forGeorge. It is a question of which character needs the advantage most and which outworking will give the greater interest to the story as a whole. This story is a plot because each plot factor has a direct bear- ing upon the object of the story: the marriage of George and Agnes. Nothing else of importance is introduced. Each feature is vital to the settlement of the question as to the outcome of the courtship. Dur- ing the time covered by the play it may be that there have been other interesting things happening to our characters but not germane to the plot. Agnes may have had a narrow escape from being run down by an autotruck loaded with coal. George may have killed a mad dog. John may have thrashed a loafer who insulted a strange woman. The father may have been shot at by a political rival. All four of them may have been arrested for speeding while driving in an automobile. All of these matters are not without their visual interest. All of them concern characters in the play. But none of these incidents in the slightest degree affects the chances of George, and so, no matter how interesting they are, they are not permitted in the story. No matter how exciting or thrilling such things may momentarily be, unless they are intimately connected with the advancement of the plot, they should not be admitted to the story. It will not improve the story, for they do not belong. They may hurt the story for the same reason, interesting as they may be in themselves, because the introduction of an action is a virtual announcement that the action has a connection with the story and failure to make use of the material to advance the plot will distract the attention of the spectator in wonderment as to how the incident will change the course of events. If Agnes is seen to escape death under the wheels of the heavy truck, we naturally suppose that this is because her escape or her peril will in some way affect future developments. You note the in- cident and thereafter are on the watch for a development that never comes. Perhaps you have attended some dramatic performance where the theatre cat has strolled upon the stage. Perhaps the big scene of the play has been hurt if not ruined. The moment is tense and dra- matic, but the cat is a novel surprise and for the moment is stronger than the acting of the star. The cat has no place in the scene. We wonder how she is there. An unrelated incident is like the strange cat, out of place and distracting. The bearing of the incident on the play must be explained to the sub-conscious mind before the conscious mind can again give attention to the story. Every incident must have a direct bearing upon plot. It cannot be put in merely "to make it more interesting," as so many students explain. 14. If John saved Agnes from being run down, then he established a certain claim to her favor that has a bearing on the story. If George's father was the political opponent who took a shot at Agnes' parent, then the incident will explain the opposition to the match. If George killed the mad dog just as it was about to bite John or the strange woman whom John rescued was known to be Agnes' aunt. who becomes John's partisan, then the incidents are permissible because they advance the story. A plot can have but a single objective point. This is even more binding on photoplay than on the drama of the stage. We cannot have as objective the twin facts that George and John both wish to marry Agnes. We must select either John or George and state our preference or, by changing slightly the factors, make it plain that it is because we are interested in Agnes and know that she prefers George to John that we wish to see George and Agnes wed. This matter of choice of protagonist is the first matter to be settled. We must first select the chief character and then plan to hold all the interest to that character. In the story as stated George is the protagonist, Agnes theobject and John the antagonist. If we made Agnes the protagonist (or heroine) then George would be the objective and John would remain the antagonist, but would be forced to change his tactics and through the father seek to force Agnes to marry him. If George is the hero all the action must directly or indirectly relate to his chances. If Agnes is the favorite, George is interesting merely because he is the man we want to see Agnes marry because it is her wish. The best way to determine the question of protagonist is to state the plot in the form of a question and its answer. The question shows in its formation who must carry the interest. It reads: George desires to marry Agnes. Does he? Clearly George is our hero and the action must be directed to his chances. If the question reads: Agnes wishes to marry George. John seeks to marry her. Doesshe marry George? then it is plain that we must center the interest on Agnes and not on George or John. In the drama of the stage it is customary to have a second pair of lovers, played by younger persons, for the so-styled comedy relief, but photoplay is too direct and too short to permit these intrusions as a rule and the attention must be held to the protagonist more rigidly than in the spoken drama, where dialogue permits explanation to be given more readily. 17. The statement of the question is the start of the play, the solving of the problem the middle action and the reply the climax or end. If the answer is affirmative, then the desirable happy ending is achieved. If the reply is in the negative, the ending is unhappy. Sometimes changing the framing of the question will permit the ending to be a happy one though the result is the same. This is true both of the dramatic play and the comedy, but particularly true of the latter. To use a familiar plot, John Smith has been out with the boys the night before. He seeks to convince his wife that he was at the office. She endeavors to learn the truth. If the question reads: Mrs. Smith seeks to learnif her husband was intoxicated. Does she? then the story has a happy ending if she finds out and an unhappy ending if she fails. Change the question to read: Smith seeks to prevent his wife ,discovering that he was drunk. Does he ? and practically the same action will give a happy ending if Mrs. Smith is deceived and an unhappy ending if she discovers his fall from grace. In one case we get the audience interested in Smith and in the other we give the interest to her. Whatever the form of the question, the answer must be dis- tinct and unmistakable. You cannot say, for example, that perhaps Agnes will marry George after she gets a divorce from John. The moment she marries John the question is answered and this story stops. You cannot say that Mrs. Smith does not find out but you think she will when Tom Brown drops around that evening because Tom never could keep a secret. You must wait and see if Tom be- trays his friend before you can answer the question and end the story. If question and answer are distinctly stated, you cannot possi- bly make the mistake of regarding mere incident as plot material. If you will only remember that all happenings must contribute to answer the question asked, there will be no trouble in making a decision. Sup- pose you have to write a story about the fact that John goes to the post office to purchase some stamps. You state the question: John goes to the post office to buy stamps. Does he get them? You make it clear that John is going after stamps, then start him on his travels. He lives at First Street. The post office is at Tenth. At Second Street John seesa trolley car crash into a furniture van. The driver of the van is killed. Between Second and Third streets a painter falls from a scaffolding and is crushed into a shapeless mass. At the corner of Third street a policeman clubs a street peddler and a mob tries to take his prisoner away. The reserves are called out. Further up the street two men engaged in a duel with knives and in front of the post office he sees two men in a taxicab abduct a baby from its carriage. Then he goes in and gets the stamps. Surely this will make a most exciting story, since it is so full of exciting things. The trouble is that none of these things have any bearing on the plot. None of them has prevented John from getting his stamps. He went to get stamps and he got them. That was all. So far as the story is concerned it might have been Sunday afternoon and the streets deserted. Had John been the van driver, had he been shot by the reserves, had he fallen from the scaffold, been one of the principals in the duel or the father of the child, the probabilities are that he would not have gotten the stamps. As it was nothing that hap- pened concerned him and his quest of the stamps and so no part of the adventures concern the story. It may be granted that the incidents concerned John, in a way, but did not concern John and the stamps as well. The first step in plot formation is to learn to state clearly your proposition or question. The next is to learn to select only those incidents and happenings that serve to advance the story to its conclusion and lastly to clearly and explicitly reply to the questions. The reply must be "Yes" or "No." It cannot be "Perhaps." Plot generally concerns three persons or two persons and an object or ambition. We have the man who desires the woman who also is sought by the second man, the two women who have set their affections on the same man or the person with an ambition that runs contrary to the ambition of another. It is tustomary, though not wholly correct, to speak of these persons as the hero, heroine and villain or villainess. Where an object replaces a person on one side of the triangle, then we have a hero or heroine, a villain or villainess and an object. The terms, however, are misnomers and sometimes mislead the novice who cannot understand that his leading character is a hero though he may not be heroic and who hesitates to call his villain by that term because of his good moral character. He cannot understand that in such a plot as the Raffles stories present the hero is a thief and the villain the person of good character who seeks to prevent these thefts. Moreover the terms hero and heroine seem to contradict the rule in paragraph fifteen of this chapter to the effect that there cannot be two chief characters of equal interest. The very naming of these personages suggests a sharing of the interest. Substituting the proper terms will make the matter more easily understandable. Plot concerns three persons or two persons and an object. One of these is the protagonist. The protagonist may be either the hero or heroine of the story. The villain, who is a villain only because he offers obstacle to the achievement of the object, is the antagonist. The objective is the thing desired by the protagonist and which the antagonist opposes. The objective may be a woman, a man, an honor, or whatever it is that the protagonist desires. In its last analysis, then, the plot consists of a protagonist who has an object which he seeks to attain and the attainment of which the antagonist seeks to prevent through the interposition of obstacle which the protagonist seeks to overcome through struggle, the interest in which is determined by the quality and preservation of suspense. It has a start, or beginning, a middle and an end, and it consists of a question asked and answered in definite and unmistakable terms. The plot to a story is what the metrical and rhyme scheme is to a poem or the underlying drawing is to a painting. Without such basic framework, the final structure may not stand alone. What is it that characterizes a story, that differentiates it from any other kind of writing? an account of a character or group of characters in a given situation; then something happens to change the situation, preferably through action by the main character, to bring it to some conclusion, for better or worse. Usually the action which brings the story to its conclusion must come from within-that is, the main character must act rather than be acted upon. I think you will find that the story where something happens to the character from outside to help him solve the problem of his situation is almost always less satisfying than that where the character acts for himself.